Paved With Good Intentions
by Psychee
Summary: Tag to 4.07, Sam POV


Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended, no money being made.

Special Thank You to Insane Troll Logic for editing and suggesting and making things better.

I have been reading the tags to 4.07 but just keep wanting more. Scene is Sam POV and occurs prior to his confrontation with Uriel.

Paved With Good Intentions

I was so focused on pulling Samhain out of his host body, that I didn't notice Dean watching. Even if I had, I was committed. I couldn't stop. I could only win or lose. My head felt like it was in a vise. I could feel something wet and warm running onto my lip and realized, in an abstract way, that my nose was bleeding. If I had had the time, I would have wondered what I was doing to myself. I didn't have the time. His push and my pull seemed equally balanced for an eternal second but then there was a shift and I knew I had won. I destroyed the demon! I saved the town. It would have been perfect except for Dean watching me. The look of betrayal on his face totally took away any pride I had in succeeding; any hope that what I had done was good and right.

Dean continued to watch me a few seconds. I think he was making sure I was able to walk and wouldn't collapse in front of him. When I didn't, he dropped his eyes, turned and left.

"Dean," I yelled after him.

He didn't stop. I didn't even look at the body laying at my feet. I just grabbed the knife from the floor and ran after him. It was only when I saw the car still sitting where we had parked it that I realized I had more than half expected him to take the Impala and leave me. He had threatened to once before, when he realized I had broken my promise not to use my powers. A promise I made when I thought he was going to die and go to Hell; right before he did die and go to Hell.

Dean was already sitting behind the wheel of the Impala. He didn't say anything as I slid into the passenger seat and shut the door. He didn't look at me either. He took a couple of deep breaths, tapped the steering wheel and started the car.

I waited for my brother to say something, anything; to go ahead and yell at me, to tell me how angry at me he was or how disappointed but the stubborn jerk remained silent.

"Dean," I said. I couldn't take the waiting anymore, the pain from my headache was making me impatient. "Dean, I had to use the power, man, I had to. I lost the knife in the fight and if I hadn't he would have killed me. Then he would have killed you and everyone else in the town."

He still didn't look at me. He still didn't say anything. "I didn't have a choice." I said quietly, desperately, "I didn't have a choice."

Dean finally looked at me but he had his emotionless mask firmly in place. He had his mask in place with me when I was sitting here with a bloody nose, a raging headache and feeling dreadfully afraid that I might be losing my brother. Did he actually expect me to apologize for saving everyone?

I could hear sirens closing in from the distance. While going to the car, I had seen the fire and smelled the smoke. I figured that Dean had been burning bodies. The fire at the cemetery had obviously been reported, probably by one of those kids that had been locked in the crypt.

Dean quickly swerved the Impala across the road onto a wide graveled shoulder, causing me to grab the dashboard. He turned off the headlights just seconds before a police car and two fire trucks screamed passed us. We sat in the dark for several minutes before I heard Dean's voice. It was so quiet that at first I wasn't sure if he was talking or if I was just imagining it.

I often imagined Dean talking to me when he was…while he was gone.

"Of course you didn't have a choice, Sam. You made damn sure you wouldn't have a choice."

Confusion warred with anger, I wasn't quite sure what he was accusing me of, "What do you mean I made sure I wouldn't have a choice. Are you saying I dropped the knife on purpose! Come on, why would I do that. I had no choice, Dean. Should I have just let him kill me? Is that what you're saying? You'd rather have me dead than use psychic powers!"

Dean's face was all shadows but I could imagine his scowl just from the tone of his voice. "Stop it Sam, just stop it. Lie to me if you want, after all I'm getting use to it, but don't lie to yourself. The little comments in the car about the demon maybe being too strong, the way you ran off and left me at the crypt. You wanted to take on Samhain by yourself. You wanted to test your big, bad demon powers against a big, bad demon. Well congratulations, little brother, the boy with the demon blood beat the demon. Just like you planned."

"Dean, that's not what..."

"I don't want to hear it, Sam. No more lies. You, Dad—you'd think I'd learn by now. Nothing ever changes; it just gets more and more screwed up.

"I just keep failing, no matter how hard I try." Dean's voice became quiet and started to break.

"Before Dad died," Dean still practically choked on the words, "when he told me I had to save you or kill you; that almost destroyed me. I tried so hard to save you. I told you that nothing bad would happen to you so long as I was around. I tried Sam. I tried so damn hard and it wasn't enough. I wasn't enough. You died and I couldn't stop it. But I made the deal. I saved you. I brought you back. Then we killed that yellow-eyed bastard and kept the armies of Hell from getting out. OK, few hundred got out but not all of them. Better yet Dad got out. For a little while, I thought I had finally done something right. I had saved you; Dad was out of Hell and maybe even was with Mom."

He was practically whispering now. "I even screwed that up. You started taking up with a demon. You started becoming hard, cold. You said you were becoming like me so you could survive after I was gone. I got scared, Sam. Not of going to Hell, though that did scare the hell out of me, but that you weren't gonna be you anymore, my jerk emo baby brother. But what could I do? I wasn't gonna be around to protect you or to kick your ass when you listened to Demon Barbie. I could only hope that you would keep your promise and trust that you were still gonna be you."

He turned toward me. In the dark I still couldn't see his face. "I went to Hell, Sam. An angel pulled me out and said that he had work for me because, you know, there's always a price. Later he told me to stop you and if I didn't they would. But I've never been able to keep you or Dad from doing anything you decided you were gonna do. The best I was ever capable of was to follow behind and try to keep things together; keep us together.

"How am I suppose to stop you, Sam? What am I suppose to do?"

My words caught in my throat and I couldn't answer. After a few minutes, Dean started the car and pulled back onto the road. The ride to the motel was completed in silence. The way it started.

We showered and went to bed without either of us saying a word. I don't think either of us slept much but toward morning I must have dozed off because the next time I opened my eyes, I saw an empty bed. Panic literally clawed at my heart. I jumped up and looked frantically for a note, his duffle, anything to let me know that my brother hadn't abandoned me. I saw his duffle immediately but the note letting me know he had gone out for coffee took a few seconds longer.

Feeling restless, I got dressed and went down to the office to pick up a paper. I wanted to see if there was anything in it about the fire at the cemetery. The Impala was sitting in front of the door.

I guess Dean had been feeling restless too and decided to walk.

As soon as I opened the door to our room, I knew someone was there. I dropped the paper and had my gun was in my hand before the door had finished swinging open. Castiel was standing in front of the windows. The morning sun filtering through the dusty blinds gave the illusion of a halo around his body. At least I think it was an illusion. He moved towards me and the light shifted into normal muted, early morning sunshine. I put my gun away.

He must have known I used my powers again. I figured he had come to slap my wrist or threaten me in person rather than through Dean. I was bone weary and really didn't want to have this confrontation. But it's not like I had a choice. Choice, I almost laughed, when have I ever really had a choice about anything in my life?

What Dean's own personal angel said made me wonder if he was reading my mind.

"I know you did not ask for the burden of this Taint you carry. I can see the darkness of it, like a waxing blight, upon your soul. Each time you call the power the blight and darkness grows. You can not have the power without the cost. Are you willing to pay it?"

"I'm just trying to turn something evil into something for good. If I can use this power, this damned gift, to save people, how can that be wrong? I can make the demons pay for all they've done to me, my family, other people. I just want to save people, to save myself, to send demons back to Hell." I huffed with a sigh of frustration.

Castiel turned his back to me. I wondered if that was symbolic. He spoke quietly. "Your heart wants to be good, Samuel Winchester. You want to believe that if you can save enough people, you can be saved. However, it is not your blood that will damn you but your actions. Consider this, the best way to defeat evil is not to try to turn it to good purpose but to deny its place in your life altogether.

"Think of Ava and of Jake. Were they evil when you first met them? They also had the Taint. It was not until they embraced it, tried to use it, that it changed them. The more they used it, the more power the Taint had over them and their actions. Already, you look for reasons to use the power, despite your promises, despite your better judgment.

"As I told your brother, if you continue to tread this darkening path, we will have to stop you. But ultimately the choice is yours. It has always been yours."

"What's so wrong with helping people?" I shouted. "I'm not just sending demons to Hell but destroying them!"

Castiel turned to look at me again. His eyes were calm but a little sad. "When you found out about the Taint, you prayed for guidance. You prayed that you could somehow make it right. Guidance was offered and you choose. You took the advice of a demon, rather than the counsel offered by your brother. She said embrace the power given to you by the blood of the fiend that killed your mother, your love, your father and countless others. Your brother, who loves you and wants only that which is good for you, said to not use the power, that nothing good would come of it.

"Now, when even clearer guidance is offered, still you, who professed to have faith, reject it."

I dropped my eyes. Not willing to concede the point.

"At the Word of my Father, I renewed your brother's body and raised Dean's spirit from torment."

I looked up sharply, a shiver of warning going down my spine.

"I can cast him back down. What would you do to save his soul from Hell, Samuel?"

"Is that a threat?"

"It is a question. Before the Hounds of Hell broke his body and dragged his soul to the Pit, you vowed you would do anything to save your brother. Did you mean it? Do you mean it still?"

"Why are you asking me this? What are you going to do?"

"It is not what I am going to do. The question is what are you going to do?"

With a flash of light and a sound like the rustle of feathers he was gone. I collapsed down on the threadbare couch, stunned. I didn't know how long I sat there before I heard a key turn in the lock. Dean opened the door, juggling two cups of coffee and a brown bag with a small grease stain in the corner. He kicked in the paper that I had dropped beside the threshold. He didn't say anything, just dropped the bag on the coffee table, sat down beside me and handed me one of the cups.

I took it and held it in both hands. My brother may not be talking to me yet, but his solid presence beside me was saying in Winchester-speak that we would somehow work every thing out.

In my you-make-my-life-suck-and-I-hate-you-Dad rebellion years, I used to get as angry at Dean for taking all Dad's crap as I got at Dad. I would hoard each broken promise like it was precious and used it to fuel my teenage rage until it seemed that Dad and I couldn't hold a civil conversation. Dean would just go quiet for a few days and forgive him.

I understand Dad a lot better now. But with angels on one side and demons on the other, I don't think I have ever been more grateful for my brother's steadfast devotion and infinite capacity to forgive.

Maybe my prayers had been answered but I hadn't been listening. Maybe I should start making better choices or at least stick to the choices that I make.

Dean went to Hell for me. I hope I can keep from going to Hell for him.


End file.
